Jewel Weed

								

Already the Hindu had been talking to them for an hour. His speech had
that precision and purity both of word and of enunciation by which a
foreigner, trained in our classics, often shames our slovenly every-day
English. He spoke, not as one who wishes to convert others to his own
point of view, but, rather, as though unconscious of their presence, he
poured out the fullness of his meditations in self-communion. The
upward-turned eyes were half closed. Occasionally there was a flicker of
the eyelids or a touch of scorn when he contrasted the eastern ideal of
eternal repose with the western reality of endless struggle. Then for a
moment he seemed to realize the presence of his auditors, ashamed now of
their telephones, their public schools and even of their philanthropies,
in the face of this supreme contempt for the things that fade.
Suddenly he opened wide his great eyes.
"And you," he said, "you, with your guns, your armies and your
ignorances, you think to rule us. Well, so be it! We grant to you
dominion as a man gives to a child the sticks and straws for which it
loudly clamors in its petty plays. But our treasures are the higher
thoughts which alone are worthy of the man. These we reserve."
The great oriental ruby above his forehead seemed to burn more
brilliantly than ever as if to shame the frivolous occidental jewels
that twinkled before it.
"Yes," he went on, "these gems we do not submit to force. They are not
to be ravished by blood and iron. Yet even these, our sacred treasures,
we gladly share with those who, in humility and in the life of
meditation, seek with us the universal truths. And truth, what is it? It
eludes the scalpel of reason. It is the master and not the servant of
logic. The only truths worthy to be known are those which are to be
experienced by the soul in her hours of solitude. Then does she cease to
think. Then does she cease to reason. Then does she know."
He was dogmatic and they fell under his sway. A hush deeper than silence
lay upon his audience as the Swami stood for a moment as though lost in
himself. Recalling his surroundings he spoke again.
"My friends in this land, who are coming to understand with us, and we
are not numerous even in India--the land of inspiration--my friends,
whom you call by some long name which I have forgotten, ask me to tell
you a little of what we know concerning the order of the universe. I
will unfold." As though giving instruction in elementary arithmetic,
Swami Ram Juna began to sketch the adventures of the soul as it flies
from one existence to another. His words were vivid and definite.
At this point Dick Percival's lips began to move with the cynical
amusement of youth.
"Pretty positive, isn't he, about the things no mortal knows?" he
whispered to Norris.
Softly spoken though the words were, Ram Juna instantly fixed his eyes
upon the guilty youth. It was a habit of the Hindu to hear everything